1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to bi-stable non-volatile electromechanical carbon nanotube interface to field-effect transistor and methods of forming such an interface.
2. Discussion of Related Art
There are numerous ways of forming patterns on and into the surfaces of semiconductor substrate materials. Semiconductor MOSFET transistors are ubiquitous in modern electronics. These devices possess the simultaneous qualities of bistability, high switching speed, low power dissipation, high-reliability, and scalability to very small (nanometer) dimensions. One feature not typical of such MOSFET-based circuits is the ability to retain a digital state (i.e. memory) in the absence of applied power. This need for a constantly applied power is most greatly felt in the area of miniature or portable electronic systems, where only limited battery power may be available.
Currently, most memory storage devices utilize a wide variety of energy dissipating devices which employ the confinement of electric or magnetic fields within capacitors or inductors respectively. Examples of state of the art circuitry used in memory storage include FPGA, ASIC, CMOS, ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, DRAM, MRAM and FRAM, as well as dissipationless trapped magnetic flux in a superconductor and actual mechanical switches, such as relays.
An FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is a programmable logic device (PLD), a programmable logic array (PLA), or a programmable array logic (PAL) with a high density of gates, containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates with a wide variety of possible architectures. The ability to modulate (i.e. effectively to open and close) electrical circuit connections on an IC (i.e. to program and reprogram) is at the heart of the FPGA (Field programmable gate array) concept.
An ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) chip is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. The use of ASICs can improve performance over general-purpose CPUs, because ASICs are “hardwired” to do a specific job and are not required to fetch and interpret stored instructions.
Important characteristics for a memory cell in electronic device are low cost, nonvolatility, high density, low power, and high speed. Conventional memory solutions include Read Only Memory (ROM), Programmable Read only Memory (PROM), Electrically Programmable Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and Static Random Access Memory (SRAM).
ROM is relatively low cost but cannot be rewritten. PROM can be electrically programmed but with only a single write cycle. EPROM (Electrically-erasable programmable read-only memories) has read cycles that are fast relative to ROM and PROM read cycles, but has relatively long erase times and reliability only over a few iterative read/write cycles. EEPROM (or “Flash”) is inexpensive, and has low power consumption but has long write cycles (ms) and low relative speed in comparison to DRAM or SRAM. Flash also has a finite number of read/write cycles leading to low long-term reliability. ROM, PROM, EPROM and EEPROM are all non-volatile, meaning that if power to the memory is interrupted the memory will retain the information stored in the memory cells.
EEPROMS are widely used within the computer industry to store a BIOS (basic input-output system) for a computer, sensor, or processing device, allowing it to load data and system instructions from other storage media when the unit receives first power after being in a quiescent state. The size of the BIOS is typically minimized in design because of the high cost of flash memory.
DRAM (dynamic random access memory) stores charge on capacitors but must be electrically refreshed every few milliseconds complicating system design by requiring separate circuitry to “refresh” the memory contents before the capacitors discharge. SRAM does not need to be refreshed and is fast relative to DRAM, but has lower density and is more expensive relative to DRAM. Both SRAM and DRAM are volatile, meaning that if power to the memory is interrupted the memory will lose the information stored in the memory cells.
Consequently, existing technologies are either non-volatile but are not randomly accessible and have low density, high cost, and limited ability to allow multiple writes with high reliability of the circuit's function, or they are volatile and complicate system design or have low density. Some emerging technologies have attempted to address these shortcomings.
For example, magnetic RAM (MRAM) or ferromagnetic RAM (FRAM) utilizes the orientation of magnetization or a ferromagnetic region to generate a nonvolatile memory cell. MRAM utilizes a magnetoresistive memory element involving the anisotropic magnetoresistance or giant magnetoresistance of ferromagnetic materials yielding nonvolatility. Both of these types of memory cells have relatively high resistance and low-density. A different memory cell based upon magnetic tunnel junctions has also been examined but has not led to large-scale commercialized MRAM devices. FRAM uses a circuit architecture similar to DRAM but which uses a thin film ferroelectric capacitor. This capacitor is purported to retain its electrical polarization after an externally applied electric field is removed yielding a nonvolatile memory. FRAM suffers from a large memory cell size, and it is difficult to manufacture as a large-scale integrated component. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,853,893; 4,888,630; 5,198,994, 6,048,740; and 6,044,008.
Another technology having non-volatile memory is phase change memory. This technology stores information via a structural phase change in thin-film alloys incorporating elements such as selenium or tellurium. These alloys are purported to remain stable in both crystalline and amorphous states allowing the formation of a bi-stable switch. While the nonvolatility condition is met, this technology appears to suffer from slow operations, difficulty of manufacture and poor reliability and has not reached a state of commercialization. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,448,302; 4,845,533; and 4,876,667.
Wire crossbar memory (MWCM) has also been proposed. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,128,214; 6,159,620; and 6,198,655. These memory proposals envision molecules as bi-stable switches. Two wires (either a metal or semiconducting type) have a layer of molecules or molecule compounds sandwiched in between. Chemical assembly and electrochemical oxidation or reduction are used to generate an “on” or “off” state. This form of memory requires highly specialized wire junctions and may not retain non-volatility owing to the inherent instability found in redox processes.
Recently, memory devices have been proposed which use nanoscopic wires, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, to form crossbar junctions to serve as memory cells. See WO 01/03208, Nanoscopic Wire-Based Devices, Arrays, and Methods of Their Manufacture; and Thomas Rueckes et al., “Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing,” Science, vol. 289, pp. 94-97, 7 July, 2000. Electrical signals are written to one or both wires to cause them to physically attract or repel relative to one another. Each physical state (i.e., attracted or repelled wires) corresponds to an electrical state. Repelled wires are an open circuit junction. Attracted wires are a closed state forming a rectified junction. When electrical power is removed from the junction, the wires retain their physical (and thus electrical) state thereby forming a non-volatile memory cell.
The use of an electromechanical bi-stable device for digital information storage has also been suggested (c.f. U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,149: Non-volatile memory device including a micro-mechanical storage element).
The creation and operation of a bi-stable nano-electro-mechanical switches based on carbon nanotubes (including mono-layers constructed thereof) and metal electrodes has been detailed in a previous patent application of Nantero, Inc. (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,574,130, 6,643,165, 6,706,402; and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 09/915,093, 10/033,323, 10/033,032, 10/128,117, 10/341,005, 10/341,055, 10/341,054, 10/341,130, 10/776,059, and 10/776,572, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties).